Friday, August 21, 2015

On a crisp winter's evening in January 2012 Srikanth was introducing
Soul Cages, my first production to the New Delhi audience at Kamani
Auditorium. The words he used were, " Solo Bharathanatyam Dance
Theatre" and went on to add that this was the best he could describe the
production, because the production defied characterisation. I would
think 2015 is a year when "dance theatre" came to its own. It is
refreshing and invigorating to see how many dance theatre projects are
hitting the stage across the country and abroad.

I have had the opportunity to watch a few of these. Some of them were
superlative. A few others, efforts in a theatrical direction but not
quite there yet. The ones that I thought missed the bulls eye did not
do so for lack of an ability of the lead dancer. I would think what the
production missed was naturalisation and/or nucleation. Is that a
word? Well it is now!

Let me elucidate. When I say naturalisation, I mean adapting work by
foreign writers to an Indian dance theatrical performance. A lack of
naturalisation would mean using the work as is and presenting it through
Indian classical dance. An example would be to present Romeo and Juliet
as is in Bharathanatyam. The problem that I have here is being unable
to reconcile an essentially foreign tale being told in an Indian dance
language. It would be something like Romeo breaking into a Tamil song
under Juliet's balcony. Some dancers indulged in a little bit of
naturalisation - the names of the characters would become Indian, a few
Sanskrit shlokas would pop up every now and then to emphasise the
Indianness of the project. It is better than the first category but it
is still two insoluble liquids for me. What I am looking for is a
complete naturalisation, something like Vishal Bharadwaj did with
Macbeth, Othello, or Hamlet in Maqbool, Omkara, and Haider respectively.
If you haven't seen these movies, I couldn't recommend them highly
enough.

The second issue is what I term as nucleation. Here, the dancer performs
the project without ever getting to the core of what the story is
about. Kalidasa's Meghadootam would be performed with extensive emphasis
on how to portray the cloud, the pining lovers, or the wonderful
poetry. What gets missed out is the unsaid futility of hoping to send a
message through a cloud, thereby missing Kalidasa's real genius. The
adaptations tend to be structured around the dancer and the danceable
elements and not the story. Therefore the adaptations look very
superficial.

We are moving a long way from the process of six dance pieces largely
based on pining heroines. It thrills me that connoisseurs of dance have
started openly commenting that such a repertoire meets the needs of an
Arangetram, but not much else. The next step is more and more
meaningful adaptations whether they be of popular works or original
stories. And soon dance theatre will be authoring Meghadootas of their
own!

Sunday, May 3, 2015

I must have seen this many times before, but this time I really put my thoughts on it. I am referring to Edvard Munch's painting titled 'The Scream'. What it features is a woman on a bridge screaming in what seems like terror. The bold brush strokes and an intriguing portrayal of a moment frozen in time lends itself to myriad interpretations. What led to that moment? How did it go from there? What is the story?

'The Scream' is not the only one. There are many other paintings that leave us trying to read the story that a frozen moment speaks. Given that an art form such as painting or sculpture by their very nature are forced to portray a moment, it amazes me how these artists manage to tell a whole story in a moment!

As dancers we are far more fortunate. We have ninety to one hundred and twenty minutes to tell the story behind 'The Scream'. An amazing opportunity to present the what's, why's and what's-next behind that moment. But what do we actually do? We take one moment perhaps the scream itself and describe it for an hour and a half! The mythologists would compare the scream to the baritone of Lord Shiva in some moment of rage. The Mahabharatha addicts would claim this was akin to Draupadi's most famous moment. The environmentalists would probably talk of pollution and its effects on humanity. The more enterprising would cover all this and call it - 'The Anatomy of a Scream' and add many more allusions! The contemporary artist would make obtuse references and possibly leave the poor screaming woman wondering why she screamed in the first place. In a nutshell 'The Scream' itself would become the content which by way of hundreds of examples would constitute the entire show.

This is just one example. Dancers frequently take one brief moment and describe it ad nauseum. The burning that Radha felt in the absence of her beloved Krishna would be described over twenty minutes, a waft of cool air - an experience you probably felt for ten seconds or less would be described for an hour in a production called 'Vayu' (Wind).

In fact, Vayu is a great example. All you need to do is have Vayu as cool mountain breeze felt by the lover in the arms of her beloved, as hot desert air signifying the parchedness of life in his absence, Vayu as the tempest signifying fury at her lover cheating on her, and so on and on - enough material to be called artistically different. I wonder if a kid in school can be taught the wind with these examples! Or whether the kid's teacher is likely to give a score if she finds these in the answer book.

With over ninety minutes and a kinetic canvas, why would an artist or dancer restrict herself around one phenomenon? Interesting art compresses a story to fit into an hour and a half by editing out the long portions of inaction that real life gives between the denouement of a tale. The idea of blowing up one moment into a hundred and fifty or more is a certain recipe for over statement and hyperbole.

The touchstone test again - would you go see a movie which spent three hours giving various examples of what wind is? Can we stop this masquerade on stage please.

Friday, April 3, 2015

The world of art, especially the world of art as created by
a woman tends to point out worst-case scenarios as the average truth.We have a lot of blogs, commentaries by
fairly renowned women that speak of the need for freedom without boundaries or
regard the opposite sex as completely and irrevocably lecherous.

In the world of dance perhaps more so than literature, the
plight of a woman is typified by Sita or Draupadi when the subject is
women-centric.Women feature in
other dance productions, but a Radha is always a step below Krishna; a Parvati
is so exalted that her gender does not matter!When it comes to gender inequality, we have two idols in
dance – one an ever-suffering woman who loved despite rebuke and rejection from
the one she loved.The other woman
is feisty and wears the victims-out-for-revenge attitude for the most part of
the narrative.

I do not dispute that the victims of heinous crimes do not
exist or suffer.I do not dispute
that thousands of Indian women put up with atrocities far beyond any logic or
reason.But the women I am
referring to number in millions – these are everyday women like your mother and
sister.They are the founding pillars
of the massive and growing middle-class Indian community.A vast majority of these women do not
get raped, do not get kicked out of their homes when they are pregnant, do not
get stripped in public while their husband watches, nor have husbands who leave
them for some higher calling.Does
this mean these women do not have any suffering?They do.But
what they suffer is so subtle and nuanced in everydayness that they do not even
know that this could be classified as suffering.In general a woman who has a husband who gets bread on the
table, children who study and top their classes, in-laws who live-in and are
supportive, are supposed to have it all.Anything beyond the happiness of this family that the woman seeks is
termed as selfish by the society.And
therefore we have generations of women who do not even know that they have the
permission to dream bigger.The
dreams can be for her husband’s promotion, an American university for the son,
a multi-national company for the daughter… but for herself it is only
vicarious.Even if there is a
dream, it would have to fit-in to the scheme of the family’s priorities.More often than not, she herself would
put it at the lowest rung.I think
the biggest injustice to women-kind is that society has conditioned all to
think this is fair and therefore we have a perfect crime.The murder of a dream in the name of
family-well-being.And it has been
perfected so well that there is no case legally, emotionally, whichever way you
look at it.

Why do these women not change their fate, you might
ask.If the woman had a drunk
husband who would beat her or a sarcastic mother-in-law who would torture her,
society makes for a case for her to leave them.More often than not, the husband is not a decrepit soul who
willingly inflicts the suffering on purpose.He has been conditioned to be apathetic to the woman’s
dreams.He believes that whatever
her needs are, are met by him.How
do you leave this man?He is
loving, he does everything the society expects of him for his wife and his
family.

The proof of this revelation to me came from ‘Chains’ – my latest production.The one refrain I heard from the women audience
everywhere it was performed, and this includes China, was that it was their
story. A sprightly young girl with stars in her eyes morphs into a dutiful
robot who acts her role in a family and finally ends up as an old woman
preferring solitude for company – this was not what the young girl dreamed of
becoming.But this is what she
became.Do we even acknowledge
that this is a tragedy that has happened?

I think liberation is about respecting equality of choices within
the family parameters. It is not dissolving parameters altogether so a woman
could do pretty much anything she wants.

Monday, February 9, 2015

It has been a spectacular opening and reception from Mumbai
audiences to my production ‘Chains: Love
Stories of Shadows’. This story and its heroine Vichitra has struck a very
deep chord with audiences and their gushing accounts to me after the show of
how Vichitra’s life has in fact held a mirror to their own personal life, is
most remarkable and humbling.Rarely in life does a piece of art connect with us so deeply to wake up
to our own dreams that may have been brushed aside for another day.Chains seems to have that tug at the
heart for many of the audiences and I am in awe of the power of this art form to
be able to wield this magic once again!

I received a beautiful note from a Bharathanatyam student
who has more recently moved on to becoming a contemporary dancer.I am not sure if it was the ‘lack of
options’ for a performer in Bharathanatyam that drove her to change her focus
or if this is a brief detour from Bharathanatyam to experiment with other
forms, only to return to this dance form with the experience of dwelling in
a different world artistically.Time
will tell, but I do hope that she returns with an even deeper conviction in the
art form that she was originally groomed in.

When students from across the world write to me that they
are trying out new forms of ‘fusion’ with Bharathanatyam or in the above
instance where a student has departed completely from Bharatanatyam, I take a
long breath in and wait before I give them what they want to hear – my assent.I am of the belief that a dancer should
listen to their calling and if the call of the moment is fusion or contemporary
dance or Salsa, so be it.I am
delighted that these students look up to me and have placed me in a position of
trust to give them a few words of encouragement.Easy enough, you would think, then why this blog?

Perhaps the moment is not right for that student who has
decided to step away from Bharathanatyam to hear my take on this subject.Perhaps their own frustrations with
Bharathanatyam were too significant or maybe the faith in this art form to
serve their artistic impressions of the world, too limited.But, after living the life of a
traditional Bharathanatyam dancer who was equally frustrated and out of options
at one point with the system, and having found that true change is possible
within this very framework of Bharathanatyam, I feel that the way to artistic
freedom and success in this field is to reinvent the use of Bharathanatyam and
not have to step away from it or ‘fuse’ it with other dance/music elements.I am so utterly convinced of the power
and beauty of Bharathanatyam in its design, its repertoire of expressions from the
subtle and sophisticated to melodrama and theatrics, and its ability to
communicate a story so elegantly that I would never depart from using
Bharathanatyam and Bharathanatyam alone to tell my stories in my
productions.

Chains is an ode
to women, and an ode to Bharathanatyam.May it inspire students to renegotiate their wanting to depart from the
medium, and instead discover new paths and myriad possibilities within this art
form. Do not make the mistake of throwing away a state-of-the-art movie camera,
because you don’t like the scene you shoot through it. Change the scene!

Thursday, January 8, 2015

“God definitely resides in Chennai in the December month” –
eminent Carnatic musician

It seems to be the season of contradictions.On one hand we have the recent
blockbuster ‘PK’ that questioned blind faith and despite its share of brickbats
from some organisations, has emerged to be a runaway hit across India.On the other hand the Chennai season
which consists of approximately 2000 shows within one month, with 30 odd Sabhas averaging four to five concerts
in one day, sells an hour long tryst with divinity as per the timetables of the
performances scheduled.Much akin
to a good Raymonds or Allen Solly showroom, on offer are various types of
divinity.

Seekers of the Rama variety can experience Rama through a
performance exclusively dedicated to Him.Krishna is more common, and you can see Him across events more often as
a philanderer, but with divine justification for his actions.The ones that lean towards female power
can choose performances that glorify the slaying of demons by a female
God-head.

The problem is not about depicting stories from Hindu
religion.The problem is
proclaiming that divinity is visible for that one and half hours when the
dancer connects with the divine in her hour slot in T Nagar or Mylapore.

The effects of such divinity are obvious.Violent crime drops to near zero levels
in Chennai in December.Rapes are
non-existent.Most senior
policemen take this as their time of vacation as divinity has taken over their
jobs.Politicians become perfect –
everything is done by the book.No
scams, no corruption.There is a
feeling of love, peace, and hope among all the denizens of Chennai.Even an auto rickshaw driver will come
by the ‘meter’ charge!White
collar crimes, petty crimes, adultery, affairs, lies, deceits, envy, hatred all
these go missing in December.Especially if one is close to where the main Sabhas are, in TNagar or
Mylapore, the effect is a lot more pronounced since divinity radiates strongest
near the epicenter.For that one
month no one goes hungry, no child is mistreated and made to beg on the
streets, no woman is abused by her husband or family, people exiting after
witnessing divinity in a concert empty their purses with tears in their eyes to
the nearest charity…. Heaven descends on Chennai for this month.

Give me a break!

If divinity could be made to order in such performances, why
doesn’t the government think of a scheme where there is someone always dancing
just like the ‘Amar Jawan Jyoti’ is always burning in India Gate! That would be
the end of all our problems, for divinity would rule this earth.

Think rationally folks.Everything on earth is divine because He made it all.He does not appear on a timetable or
certain seasons.By claiming that
we attain God only in that hour of dance, we insult something we do not even
begin to comprehend.Do not
mistake an endorphin high, an adrenalin rush, or an emotional response to be
divinity.He exists in us all
every second that we breathe.Whether you choose to acknowledge God or turn a blind eye to Him is a
choice He has given you.A
homeless food deprived child can find Him as easily as a dancer or musician on
a stage.Artists are not special,
everybody is.

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Savitha and Srikanth

The Bloggers

Savitha and Srikanth are partners committed to many things; they range from artistic endeavors through their production company Sai Shree Arts, to the color of curtains in their house. Savitha comes with a very strong grounding in Bharathanatyam, the Indian classical dance form, with a vision malleable enough to be able to use the art form in unconventional ways. She is constantly seeking her nirvana through her dance and her productions. Srikanth is a cultural nomad who believes in the beauty of Bharathanatyam, but is not completely convinced about its relevance as performed today. His intuitiveness on what is intelligent and meaningful to an audience has formed the backbone of his work as a writer. Together Savitha and Srikanth make for the duo that not just theorizes on the need to make Bharathanatyam relevant at this age, but also bring it life with their productions such as ‘Music Within’ (2010), ‘Soul Cages’ (2012), 'YUDH' (2013), 'The Prophet' (2013), and 'Chains' (2015). Write to us at admin@savithasastry.com